Digital fields, networks and capital: Sociology beyond structures and fluids

Abstract

These two papers stake out the digital as the imperative sociological theme for the foreseeable future. On the face of it, the digital appears highly accessible and open. It is trumpeted as allowing information to circulate widely. Consumers can consult myriads of digital data to make informed choices. The expertise and judgements of professionals, politicians and businesses are open to unprecedented exposure through the assemblage and scrutiny of digital data sources. Consider Wikileaks or the British Parliamentary Expenses scandal in 2009 when digital records of the spending of Members of Parliament provoked huge public fury (see Ruppert and Savage, 2012). New kinds of ‘crowdsourcing’ methods involve popular mobilisation in the ordering of data (see Beer and Burrows, 2007. And so it is that governments throughout the world trumpet the democratic potential of digitalising information sources.